Aumyruthe Anciro, 30, from Cavite, the Philippines, has two jobs — one full-time as a call center representative and another part-time as an English writing tutor.

She earns about 16,000 pesos per month, equivalent to $330, and that is far from enough to take care of her sick son.

Her younger son, Ruther, four years old, suffers G6PD deficiency, an inherited condition where red blood cells fail to function normally due to an enzyme imbalance. Ruther suffers from body temperature fluctuations, fatigue, poor physical condition and fast and heavy breathing, which are among the symptoms of the illness.

He is required to see a doctor twice a month. Sometimes he has to take medication.

Anciro is raising him, and another son, alone. Ruther never met his father, Kim Mu-jin, 28, from Korea.

Ruther is one of approximately 30,000 Kopinos, the word for children born of a Korean father and an unwed Filipina mother.

Anciro and Kim met in 2011 in Manila. Kim was Anciro's student at an English language institute.

They were together for less than six months until Kim set out for Canada.

"He knew I was pregnant," Anciro told The Korea Times in an interview made via Skype. "He tried to bring me to Canada, but it didn't work out." They talked over Skype until October that year when Kim suddenly stopped answering her calls and emails.

On Dec. 7, 2011, Ruther was born.

Her attempts to get back in touch with him ended unsuccessfully.

As Ruther's first birthday approached, she decided to call his parents.

"I called his mother with the help of a Korean church in my neighborhood," Anciro recalled. Through a Korean interpreter, she told Kim's mother that Ruther is Kim's son and the one-year-old boy was sick.

In shock, the grandmother promised to send money, which arrived on his birthday. Almost 40,000 pesos, equivalent to $828, arrived, and that was her last contact with Kim's parents. She never called back.

In March 2014, she filed a suit against Kim with a Korean court, asking for support for Ruther.

"I needed support for my son," the mother said as to why she decided to sue Kim.

The suit was made possible with help from We Love Kopino (WLK), an NGO based in Manila that helps mothers of Kopinos file suits for childcare support.

She said without the WLK, she would not have thought of taking the father to court.

In March 2015, one year after the suit was filed, the two parties settled on a one-time payment of 500,000 pesos, equivalent to approximately $10,000.

The money is being set aside for Ruther's future. "The bank account is frozen. We are keeping this money for him when he becomes an adult."

The stories of approximately 30,000 Kopinos and their mothers in the Philippines may not be much different from Anciro's.

The figure is not exact. No one knows exactly how many of them there are, and this shows how neglected the issue has been.

History

The issue of the Kopinos surfaced in 2005 by a Seoul-based NGO, Tacteennaeil.

In 2004, the NGO End of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children International, known as ECPAT International, brought attention to Korean descendants living in Kiribati, an island in the Pacific Ocean. They children were mostly born to local Kiribati mothers and Korean fishermen who stayed on the island briefly.

A field study afterward showed the mothers were mostly teenagers when they got pregnant, as young as 14.

With these shocking discoveries, Tacteennaeil widened its study into other Asian countries and found that the Philippines also had a huge number of children with Korean fathers. ECPAT Korea and Tacteennaeil work together.

According to ECPAT Korea, the Kopinos' fathers are divided into three types: young Korean students who come to the Philippines to learn English, middle-ages men who stay there for business, and short-term travelers who come for prostitution. When they get pregnant, the women usually don't have abortions because the Philippines is under the strong influence of the Catholic Church.

Legal fights and NGOs

Anciro is one of the lucky few.

She had an accurate address and telephone number for Kim in Korea, and she could use them to sue him. In most cases, mothers do not have accurate personal information about the fathers.

Anciro was also lucky in that she had Ruther's birth certificate. Without that, she would have had to prove the biological relation between father and child. Those without the certificate have a lower chance of winning support.

A growing number of mothers seek childcare support, and NGOs come in to help.

Tacteennaeil provides free legal services to mothers who wish to sue the absent fathers. It has a partnership with a local law firm that represents the mothers.

The WLK also offers the same services, like it did to Anciro.

The WLK took an additional step last year, in which it stirred up a huge controversy.

The group's leader Koo Bon-chang posted photos of the fathers, provided by Kopino mothers, on his blog and Facebook account. Faces of the fathers went viral quickly, enabling many mothers to recover contact with the fathers.

But Koo's move caused controversy over the fathers' privacy. One father sued him for defamation. But the case didn't go any further. "Instead of seeking me in court, the father sent his lawyer to the Philippines and agreed on a childcare support settlement with the mother," Koo said.

Tacteennaeil said the biggest challenge for the mothers is finding the fathers' whereabouts. "Without finding the father, nothing else can be done," Tacteennaeil director Lee Young-hee said.

When cases reach the court, the results are almost always in favor of the mothers. In 2014, the first winning case was reported.

"Many men don't want to accept their responsibility initially. But eventually, they admit what they had done," Koo said.

Rising calls for government action

Tacteennail calls for more active intervention from the Korean government.

"There's so much work that we need to do in orchestration with the government," Lee said.

At the moment, the Korean government is helping Kopino children through the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). The government is reluctant to do more.

"We are loaded with other demanding issues," said one Korean diplomat handling issues of the Philippines, saying there are more serious issues including a large number of murders involving Korean nationals there.

The Philippine side seems reluctant as well. The Korea Times emailed the Philippine Embassy in Seoul for comment but didn't receive a reply.

Rep. Kim Sam-hwa of the minor opposition People's Party thinks the government should offer more help.

"Kopinos are part of a human rights issue," she said during a recent conference on the issue. "The Korean government should help them find their fathers and make them help create a decent environment for these children to grow up in. That's what the international community expects the Korean government to do."

Lee said the children are in desperate need of help. Most Kopinos grow up in poor environments without adequate education and care, and often end up in prostitution or organized crime.

Ito Rieko, who takes care of children born to Japanese fathers and Filipino mothers in Japan, said the children, called "Japinos," suffer from a huge identity crisis. "They need a lot of care," she said. Her organization, Citizen's Network for Japanese-Filipino Children, runs programs for Japinos living in Japan and the Philippines.

Lee also calls on the government to take more measures to stop the Kopino issue from continuing — meaning preventing Korean men from having reckless, irresponsible relationships with Filipina women.

"Prevention is the best solution. What we want are warning signs on travelers' phones or on screens at the airport or in the plane to the Philippines about the Kopino issue," Lee said.

The Korean diplomat said he will consider all of this.

Despite hardships, Anciro sees a brighter future for Ruther.

"God has a plan for us. That's why it happened," she said. "I have no regret (over having him in my life)."

What she will tell Ruther about his father when he gets older makes her pause. "Because it may hurt Ruther to hear it," the mother said.

But she doesn't want to keep this to herself, and she will continue to speak out about her experience.

"I want to share what I experienced so that people will know about this issue," she said. "Also, (I want to speak out) because of the WLK. I want to pay back. They helped me (win support from the father). They're like a family to us."

She has a message for the father.

"I just want him to know that he has a son in the Philippines. And I want him to be a real human."